Hi, I am new and have a question. I have been surfing the web for literally 6 hours now looking for the answer to my question. I have also joined a local home school group, state home school group and the HSLDA. I feel like I've been combing the desert trying to memorize the look and texture of each grain of sand. Lots of info to digest, but I never found an answer to the one question that I have. Let me introduce myself first, I am a 23 yr old stay at home mom with two boys, age 4 and 2, both of their birthday's are coming up very soon and they will be 5 and 3 before the next school year. My son goes to preschool (which I only put him there because his doctor recommended the independant social interaction) and he is doing well. I have always planned on Homeschooling and now is the time to start. The school however has been pressuring me to register him for "a day in K" and that would also register him for Kindergarden next year. They want to know everything about him and asked for all these papers, I'm surprised they didn't ask how many times he uses the bathroom every day lol.....
Ok so where I'm going with my story here... The school district wants registration to be done within the next 3 days and I have informed them that they will be homeschooled, although officially, since I live in Missouri there is no requirement for a letter of intent (to the best of my knowledge) since it says no notice required. I have not heard back from the person who called me about the registration. I don't know what to do from here???? Do I have to register him with the school so they can count him in the county? Who do I contact to let the "government" or whoever know that I am starting to homeschool him? I am just not really sure how I need to get started even though I've read page after page of how to get started.... I'm sure I may understand more after my application to my local chapter has been reviewed and I can actually talk one on one with other homeschoolers in my area. Right now though I don't know what I should do about the registering thing or if there is any other papers I need to sign or letters to write or send or what... please help... I appreciate any info you can give me. Thanks so much for your time.
Jeannie ( JJ )

If your child is in the public school you need to write a letter to the superintendent letting them know that you are removing them from the school system and are responsible for his/her schooling. But other than that you don't need to do anything in the state of MO as far as letting anyone know you are homeschooling.

There are other legal requirements for homeschooling in MO, but this is basically the limit of what you have to do in terms of notification. Even a Letter of Intent isn't necessary, though in your case they probably already have all the information about your son that you'd be supplying in that, so it probably wouldn't hurt anything to mail one in if you felt like it.

Thanks for your reply! So basically the way I understand this is that I don't have to notify anyone really. As far as the school goes, it would seem to me that since he isn't actually enrolled in school, since I did not register him for Kindergarden, and he will be "graduating" from his Pre-School I wouldn't actually be pulling him out of a school to home school. That is the way I see it... Would that be correct? Also, I agree with the HSLDA and the other quotes on the link you provided that it's really not a good idea to give out info that is optional. The government already keeps too many tabs on us as it is and I don't need to chew my own foot off by giving them more info than is required. So let me just make sure I got this... All I actually have to do from here is buy the curricula and get started right?